WHAT WILL THE GOVERNOR DO?? SPECIAL ELECTION TIMING…
Orange County and San Diego are looking to have special elections very soon. In San Diego, the Congressional seat belonging to the disgraceful Duke Cunningham is now wide open. It is safe GOP territory. Similarly, in Orange County, with John Campbell’s election to Congress, his State Senate seat is wide open – also a safe GOP seat.
The political low-down on these primaries has been, and will be talked about on this blog. But the purpose of this post is to talk about the fact that Governor Schwarzenegger has to choose when these special elections will take place. He does have some lattitude.
Election officials from both counties have asked to have these elections consolidated with the June primary, for a savings of many, many millions of dollars. If the Governor does this, then the primaries (which is the whole game for these GOP seats) will be in early April.
Enter the politics. Apparently Congressional Republicans are anxious to have the Cunningham seat filled ASAP (presumably with the unlikely hope that it will help taper off the bad press from the former GOP Congressman’s criminal activities) and also to get another Republican vote in the House asap. They want the election called much sooner.
That said, the best interests of conservatives appear to be in line with the wishes of local government – an April election will likely help conservative candidates in both primaries. In San Diego, State Senator Bill Morrow and former Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian stand to benefit with more time to ramp up their grassroots networks and raise funds. The more moderate former Congressman Brian Bilbray and moderate self-funded business Alan Uke would be advantaged with a shorter election window. In Orange County, moderate Assemblyman Tom Harman would love a quick election, before Harkey’s grassroots and financial advantages can overcome Harman’s name identification.
So, in this case, the Governor can do the fiscally prudent thing, and call a consolidated election for June, with an April 11 primary – and at the same time tip the hat to conservatives (at a time when he needs to be doing that) and, as a bonus – send a loud message to those Congressional types who vocally opposed Prop. 77 (redistricting) that if they want to influence California politics, they should be team players.